China Launching Its Own OS, Seriously?

PARIS — Xinhua, China's news agency, reported Sunday (Aug. 24) that China's home-grown operating system will be unveiled in October this year.

Xinhua quoted Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering saying that the OS will be first seen on desktop devices and later expanded to smartphones and other mobile devices.

Ni's comments were originally reported by the People's Post and Telecommunications News, an official trade paper run by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

China's ambition to develop its own OS has been long known. Ni, in fact, heads an OS development alliance established in March in China.

In the Chinese government's point of view, the U.S. surveillance program and Microsoft's PC operating system monopoly (not to mention China's ban on procuring Windows 8), compounded by a mobile market dominated by Google's Android OS and Apple's iPhones, all combine as perfect justification for the Chinese government to pitch its own operating system.

In the Xinhua's story, Ni noted: "China has more than a dozen mobile OS developers with no independent intellectual property rights because their research is based on Android." In his view, future development should be led by the government.

Judging from a number of interviews EE Times conducted with China's local handset vendors and fabless companies in the past 12 months, however, it's far from clear how quickly and seriously the Chinese OS will attract local Chinese technology companies whose business is supplying products not only to domestic consumers but to the global marketplace.

Ni's bravado, calling for an environment that can help Chinese "compete with Google, Apple and Microsoft," is impressive. But as Xinhua also noted in its report, "there are still problems in the program, including a lack of research funds and too many developers pulling in different directions."

@sanjib, Ni was quoted in the Chinese wire service news story that his project intention to compete against Google, Apple and Microsoft.

But considering a huge ecosystem already built in support of Android, iOS and Windows, I would say their initial intention is, first, target the home market (China.)

China has a history of developing its own, home-grown standards and technologies a) in hopes of avoiding paying roylaties; b) in the name of nurturing the home grown industry (building an ecosystem of its own); and c)in the name of security.

The third one is sort of new here and it might make sense. But the first two factors are definitely driving factors for this, for sure.

Did you know that you India too is working on its OS for more than five years or so? Defence Research and Development Organization ( DRDO) was/is to develop its own operating system (to be developed which will initially be used for defense applications (and later for commercial).

Long before that, there was news that CDAC ( Center for Development of Advanced Computing) has developed OS called the BOSS ( Bharat Operating System Solutions.

But nothing concrete has come up as of now.

The government was to use this OS for its Akash tablet ( the $60 Android-based tablet with a 7-inch screen) which was to be distributed at a lower price to government schools.

But the Akash tablet ( Akash means sky in Hindi) has been developed and is being used but the pure Indian OS has yet to put in an appearance – either in the defense of the commercial space.

Let's see how the Chinese OS takes off.. but knowing how the Indian and Chinese governments, there are chances that the Chinese OS might just do the trick.

@BobsView: I think there is more to it than just regular users. I think we saw over the last 12 months that our software, hardware and 'cloud' services are not nearly as secure as many of us thought. The Chinese government would be right to distrust software (especially close source binary) that comes from a vendor that can be directly manipulated be a foreign government (of course this also applies the other way around). So from a strategic pov, it makes sense for their government and industry to use software they know don't have back doors (except the ones they put in themselves :-) )

@Rick: Thanks for the information on the China's processor project. I see that I lost track of the stories earlier and could find some of those on EEtimes. I am amazed to see that the processor is already in commercial use...mostly used by Chinese government. I understand that it might be difficult to get more technical/performance information about the same further.

@Sanjib: The chip designed by the China national CPU project is known as Godson. If you search for that you will find several EE Timnes stories about several generaitons of the design that have reportedly been used in some desktop PCs and are now being aimed at servers.

It's hard to get information on what real traction the chip has had. But a university researcher leading the project has presented details of the chips at Hot Chips and elsewhere.

@ Junko: "Ni's bravado, calling for an environment that can help Chinese "compete with Google, Apple and Microsoft," is impressive..."

Is this operating system targeted for competing with others in the Chinese market alone or is there an intension of competing with the major players in the global market too?

There was a similar effort being made to come up with processor architecture by...I believe Chinese government...how is that progressing? Does the OS development effort has any link to this and vice versa?